


Strangers

by bloodandcream



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Azazel makes a brief appearance, Domestic, F/M, and at the very end some extremely sappy sex, and gardening, as do a lot of the angels, but the fic is mostly centered around the development of the relationship, married at first sight, married for reality tv, there's plate smashing, there's some slight violence and references to past abuse but nothing graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 03:35:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2176560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodandcream/pseuds/bloodandcream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Within the first day Meg knew what the shtick was. She was the quirky, outgoing, scrappy girl with a poor background and he was the mysterious reserved guy with a serious job and a serious face, and she was supposed to draw him out of his shell. Or something like that. Basically, they had plucked two completely different people from opposite ends of the spectrum to put together. She and Cas, their situations couldn’t be farther apart when it came to money, family, religion, personality, style, damn near everything she could tell so far.  It could be pretty funny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangers

Meg adjusted herself in the constrictive white dress, trying to squirm as little as possible while her friend Ruby applied her make up. She didn’t even know why she was wearing white, it was supposed to be for virgin’s on their wedding days wasn’t it? What color did sluts get, red? That would have been pretty sweet actually. But her soon to be husband - about whom she knew next to nothing - and the television network that was running the wedding got more say in the whole affair than her.

Well, maybe it was all the tv network and her husband to be didn’t really get much of a say either.

From what she could see of the crowds he had a large family turnout. Meg had her three bride’s maids - Ruby, Lilith and Eve - who were her best friends, but other than that she didn’t have any other close friends or family to attend. Her dad was in jail and she’d never known her mom.

So pretty much all of the people out there that weren’t part of the tv crews would be for one Castiel Novak. Meg had gotten his name, but the tv network was with holding any and all other information from her, and him too probably. It was supposed to be a surprise. A test of sorts she guessed, or a game more likely. It would probably make it more amusing for the audience, Meg could roll with that.

Eve was fussing with her hair while Lilith was cursing out a member of the church that had come up to check on them. Meg was as ready as she’d ever be. It had been a joke at first, applying for this reality show wedding thing where they stuck two strangers together to see if they could last a year. But she was kind of glad she’d gotten in on it, if she could make it for the year she’d get a nice million dollar paycheck for it.

See, Meg didn’t come from the good side of town, or from a good family, or from ‘good’ much of anything. That was fine by her, it made her into the tough independent woman she was and she liked who she was. She got by. Even if it was splitting a studio apartment with her friend, busting her ass at a diner during the day, dancing during the weekends, selling plasma when there was no food in the cupboard and buying all the blankets from good will for winter. She got by. But she wouldn’t mind getting by a little better and a million dollars would go a hell of a long way.

Regarding herself in the mirror one last time before turning to follow the clergyman, Meg liked her dress well enough. The network had given her a small list of options for a few of the things during the wedding, they had split up everything from the church to the menu to the cake between her and this Castiel guy, so they both had a little say. There were minimal options though, and their differing choices might clash hilariously, it would make for good tv. He was picking the accent colors for his grooms, she was picking the dress colors for her bridesmaids. Oh no, they might clash, how dramatic.

Meg had picked the least offensively frilly dress she could, nice clean lines and small pearl beads for adornment, and she did look pretty rocking in it with how low cut the corset was and how the skirt swirled around her legs instead of being all puffed out. It wasn’t too bad. She could make herself useful to a guy for a year and walk away with a mill, no problem, she knew how to be the sort of thing that a lot of guys wanted. This guy, Castiel, he was probably some fugly guy that couldn’t get laid, or maybe he was just an asshole, or maybe he was arrogant and wanted the fame of being on tv. Eh, it could be all three.

She didn’t even know why they had to have a big shebang in a fancy church, she wasn’t religious, she didn’t believe in any gods. And marriage to her had always been an antiquated system of reducing women to property to be exchanged for political and economical reasons. But hey. ‘One million dollars’ was her mantra today, and for the next year.

Following along where she was led, eventually Meg got to saunter down the aisle to cliche music in a cliche church with cameras glued to her side and bright lights in her eyes. Once she reached the altar and saw the guy she was supposed to marry, Meg decided he must be an asshole cause he definitely wasn’t ugly. Dark brown hair was combed neatly away from a symmetrical face with a strong jawline and straight nose, intense blue eyes looking down on her cause damn, dude was tall. Meg noticed, in all the primped and proper and exact perfection of the tv set wedding, that his tie was backwards, and she almost lost her shit laughing.

—-

It was a summer wedding in June, the reception held outside under white tents strung with fairy lights and blue ribbons. It was a pretty classy affair, but Meg was infinitely grateful for the open bar. The ceremony had been dull and stuffy, the first words she’d heard out of her new husband were their vows, and she really, really wanted to know if he liked dirty talk because the only thing that kept her vaguely interested in the proceedings was his voice.

Which he apparently didn’t use much, as he was quiet and shut off to her throughout most of the reception. His family was huge and they seemed to be for the most part a group of conservative disapproving people that were highly displeased by Castiel’s choice to marry a stranger on tv but were far too polite to voice this. There were a few colorful characters, but Meg didn’t mingle too much, staying by Cas and trying to ply any information she could from the guy she was supposed to spend a year married to. He usually answered in polite, clipped sentences. And she didn’t catch him staring at her cleavage once during the whole thing. Not once.

Meg gave up the nice act and forcibly dragged him onto the platform that was set up for a dance floor with a live band. It was the most awkward dance she had ever had in her life. And from a part time stripper, that was saying a lot.

Swaying with a slight drunken lilt, she said her goodbyes before departing for the honeymoon with her new husband. Ruby, Lilith and Eve were the only people she’d miss in this town, they were her only real friends. She had nothing else to keep her here, her apartment was a shit hole, her job at the diner - which the network had papers on - would be interchangeable for a job at any diner in the country and her job at the club - which the network didn’t know about and Cas never would either - well that was a loss she could take. Castiel had a house already, and he had a good job, she was assured she wouldn’t even need to work. Meg wasn’t sure she could play the role of good housewife but she sure wouldn’t mind being paid a million to cook and clean and look pretty for a year.

Everything was arranged for her to move halfway across the country from Chicago to Seattle and settle down with him. She wasn’t Meg Masters anymore.

She was Meg Novak.

—-

Meg untied the laces from the corset section of her dress, unpopping and unbuttoning an obscene amount of things she didn’t know the names to in the front, sides and back of the elaborate dress just so she could wriggle out of the thing and leave it pooled on the plush carpet of the honey moon suite floor, not giving a damn if it wrinkled. The lingerie she wore underneath was black - her own touch. A strapless bra, lace panties, simple garter belt that held up thigh high sheer black nylons.

If she was going to be married for a year, she was going to do it right, and she was going to have her husband wrapped around her finger.

In the course of getting out of her elaborate dress, her new husband Cas had shrugged off his coat and unbuttoned his waistcoat, but he was still mostly dressed and now lounging back in the large bed reading. Meg wasn’t sure where he had gotten the book. Or why his eyes weren’t on her as she slinked over to the bed and crawled up onto it and into his space.

"Hey Clarence, what say you and me consummate this sacred union."

He didn’t even look up from his book, at her sarcasm or her tits.

"My name is Castiel."

"Oh yeah."

Meg sat back on her heels and reached behind her back to pop the clasps on her bra and fling it aside. Plucking the book out of his hold she straddled his lap. Castiel froze underneath her, looking up with startled eyes to find a mostly naked woman in his lap. Meg couldn’t suppress a roll of her eyes. This guy was something else.

"Please remove yourself from my lap."

“We’re husband and wife now. Sex is one of the perks.”

"You’re a stranger. I’m not in the habit of sleeping with strangers."

"We’re going to be living together for at least a year, so it’s not like we’ll be strangers for long."

Meg placed her palms flat against Castiel’s chest, pleased at the definition of hard muscle she felt there, finding herself wanting to get into his pants, to break open his composed exterior. He was definitely still firmly in the asshole category. But he was a sexy asshole, she could give him that.

Dipping forward to kiss him while her hands slid lower down his chest and stomach, Meg squawked when she found herself suddenly displaced and laying flat on her back next to him.

"I said no. And I mean it."

"You cannot seriously expect me to go a year without having sex."

Castiel tugged his tie a little loser, retrieving his book from the nightstand like it was a shield, fingers idly caressing it’s spine.

"We don’t have to….. this is not a real marriage and I do not expect you to remain faithful. If you would like to seek companionship outside our relationship that is fine."

"Really? So you don’t want any of this…." Meg gestured up and down her body. She was hot, she knew it. "… even though it’s right here and yours to take? Why the hell did you sign up for this joke for then, if you don’t even want sex out of it?"

"It’s complicated."

"Are you gay?"

"I have no preference."

“Uh huh. Sure. Well, I’m not shy and I’m not going to step on egg shells around you.”

With that, Meg snapped the stays on her garter and slid lace panties down her legs, hands sliding over her body, fingers teasing, back arching into it, watching Cas as she played with herself.

He stood up stiffly and took his book to the bathroom where he locked himself in.

Asshole.

—-

When they flew away to some tropical honeymoon destination - Fiji or something like that - Meg discovered that she was not, in fact, Castiel’s first marriage. No, he was first and foremost married to his work.

His laptop, cell phone, and tablet were never out of reach from him, even on the beach.

It wouldn’t have made for a very good television show. But he was paired with her, and she flounced around the beach in a skimpy bikini laughing and trying to tug him out into the water to splash around and put down his damn work for five minutes.

Within the first day Meg knew what the shtick was. She was the quirky, outgoing, scrappy girl with a poor background and he was the mysterious reserved guy with a serious job and a serious face, and she was supposed to draw him out of his shell. Or something like that. Basically, they had plucked two completely different people from opposite ends of the spectrum to put together. She and Cas, their situations couldn’t be farther apart when it came to money, family, religion, personality, style, damn near everything she could tell so far.

It could be pretty funny.

Except that after a whole week of this, his death glare when she interrupted his work didn’t lessen, she hadn’t gotten him in swim trunks once, and he never laid a hand on her behind closed doors when the cameras weren’t watching.

—-

When they got back from their honeymoon – their sexless honeymoon – Castiel went straight back to work and Meg wandered around the house all day, then the block, then the town. There were lots of things to do in the area, and Cas had a bike she could get around on. It wasn’t too bad. But she’d been working two jobs for years and having all the time on her hands was weird. She needed to do something, be productive.

After the first few nights of take out, Meg decided to try cooking for Cas. Instinctively she bristled at the thought of cooking dinner for her husband when he came home from work. But honestly, what better things did she have to do with her time. It wasn’t like she knew how to cook a lot of things anyway, so it wouldn’t be anything fancy. Biking herself to the store while he was at work, Meg picked up hamburger helper.

When Cas came home, he set everything in it’s proper place, the keys into the bowl by the door, the trench coat on it’s hanger, the brief case on to the desk in his study. Meg didn’t really know what he did for a living, it was some sort of important clerical businessy accountant type job. Or something. She zoned out when he started talking about reports and spreadheets and budgets. Whatever it was, it made a fat paycheck. It also made for a high strung Cas who worked too much at home, but hey, he was the one that picked it.

Said Cas came walking into the kitchen rolling up the sleeves on his shirt, looking at her like she was some lost ancient artifact as she stood at the stove stirring dinner.

“You cooked?”

“Yeah, well, it’s just hamburger helper. I have way too much time on my hands.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“Sure. So I was thinking of getting a job.”

“You don’t have to, I don’t mind supporting you.”

“Well shucks isn’t that sweet Clarence, but see, I’m bored out of my skull. I want to find a job somewhere.”

“Whatever you like.”

Castiel sat at the kitchen table, looking uncertain of himself, and Meg scooped up a few servings into bowls and plopped them down. She was getting used to having camera crews everywhere. When something was constantly present it faded into the background and became the norm. Cas seemed stuck on them though, his gaze darting over her shoulder frequently.

She tried to make small talk, to get him to open up, to find out about who he was but you’d of sworn the guy was ex-mafia or something for how tight lipped he was.

Weeks passed like that, in quiet, Cas being polite and acquiescing, Meg tending house and exploring the new territory looking for a job. Eventually, she got another waitressing gig part time. But it was better than nothing and when she picked up a few evening shifts she and Cas saw each other even less.

—-

With a little patience and careful navigation, Meg managed to coax more information out of Cas on the weekends. When he wasn’t glued to his tablet, she found that her husband actually had a few hobbies and he was vastly more personable when he was a little relaxed from actually doing what he wanted to do. It still surprised her though, when she learned he liked to do more than just reading and working out.

Meg had found a small workout room in the basement when she was exploring, complete with treadmill, weights and punching bag. She almost wanted to sneak around and catch Cas working out, she hadn’t seen him naked yet because he always slept with pajama’s on, and she was curious. But he probably worked out before she even woke up, because he was never still in bed when she rose. After snooping a little, she found sweaty clothes in the laundry basket in the mornings. So he read – a lot – and worked out, and went to his job. But the hobbies were interesting.

There were gardens and a vegetable patch in the back of the house. For how swanky the neighborhood was, Meg had assumed that Cas probably had a gardener. Then one weekend she found him donning a wide brimmed hat and smearing sunscreen lotion on his nose. He was wearing loose ragged jeans and a tattered shirt faded black, and Meg had never seen him out of slacks and a button down before – except for pajamas.

She followed him outside and watched him kneel down and dig into the earth, a small array of tools and a bucket for weeds next to him. He didn’t say anything to her, let her follow and make her judgments.

“Did you get all of this set up?”

“Yes.”

“So how long you been gardening for?”

“Years. When I went to college I kept plants on the windowsill. I’d always wanted a vegetable patch, so when I got my own yard….”

Castiel shrugged and continued pulling weeds. Meg sat down on the grass next to him, the sun warm on her skin, studying the different plants she didn’t know all the names of. Eventually she moved to pluck out a weed, but Castiel’s hand stopped her.

“Ah, try this one.”

Guiding her over to a different plant that still looked a lot like the plant she just had her hand on, Meg rolled her eyes, and started pulling weeds with him.

—-

As the months wore by they fell into a routine. Meg managed to make a few friends at her workplace, and started to go out on the weekends with them. She took up Cas’ open ended offer that she could seek ‘companionship’ outside their relationship. Which wasn’t really much of a relationship, it was like they were awkward room mates.

Hooking up with a few different guys but never seeing anyone twice, Meg did her own thing and Cas did whatever it was that Cas did. She didn’t know, eventually she stopped asking, and she figured that she’d stop caring at some point too. Meg had never heard him talk about another girl, never saw any evidence of trysts on his clothes or smelled someone else on him. Quite possibly, he was a secret monk.

Meg didn’t hide what she did, she staid out all night sometimes, she wore skimpy outfits to the clubs, she came home with cologne and smoke in her hair and numbers scrawled in sharpie on her arms. Cas never seemed to mind, he just bustled about quietly like he always did. Every now and then she noticed the camera crew sniggering or whispering behind their cameras. Whatever, they could laugh all they wanted about this weird fake marriage, she and Cas were still married and still living together. Those were the stipulations to get the million dollars at the end of the year. They slept in the same room, ate together, it was fine.

As summer wore on into fall and November loomed, they started discussing what they wanted to tell their families and do for the holiday’s. Meg wasn’t religious and wasn’t big on the season, and Cas seemed to harbor a distaste for it as well but he had a large family and apparently a large sense of duty to his family.

Meg’s father, Allen, was in prison however, and she didn’t keep in touch with any other family. Not like she had a whole lot of it, a few scattered cousins, one brother that had disappeared years ago and she never heard from.

She made sure to visit her father now and then, but wasn’t certain if she should take Cas to see him. The guy was a little off his rocker. To put it lightly. He was in prison for murdering a few people, and although they’d tried to get him locked up in a psych ward somehow the prosecutor managed to get his case for insanity dismissed. Meg wasn’t sure how you could not think a guy was crazy when he called himself Azazel and killed a few people in the name of Satan, but hey, apparently they didn’t think he was genuine. Meg was raised by him, she lived with, she knew just how batshit he was. But she still loved him.

Castiel decided they’d try and visit her father – together – for Thanksgiving and go to his family’s house for Christmas. She had told Cas all about her father, but he either wasn’t taking her seriously or was taking her very, very seriously. 

It was always so goddam hard to get a read on him at all.

—-

They’d had to jump through a lot of hoops in order to get the tv crew into prison. A special visit was set up and everything was thoroughly searched, catalogued and supervised. Meg usually visited her dad a few times a year, just to say hi, but it wouldn’t be a hardship to go the whole year without stopping by. Castiel seemed completely neutral to the whole situation, of course he was mr fucking switzerland , neutral to just about everything.

The network however, seemed very very interested in arranging a visit, and Meg had no doubt it was for ratings and not out of the good of their hearts. She was still happy to see her father when the guards led him into the private room they’d set up.

"Daddy!"

Smiling at him from her chair, because she was barred from hugging him, her father turned a charming grin on her and settled into his chair, putting his cuffed hands on top of the table.

"Hello there sugar. I see you’ve got you an entourage."

"Yeah, this is Cas daddy, my husband. We got married on a tv show."

"Hello sir."

Castiel was stiff backed but nothing if not polite next to her. Allen’s honey brown eyes regarded him with careful calculation, and Castiel stared right back.

"I don’t really understand the concept, but I hope you’re happy. I’ve only ever wanted you to be happy."

"I know. I am. Castiel is good to me. I got out of Chicago , we have a house Seattle ."

"That’s nice. You better treat her right, boy. I have far reaching influence."

"I have no ill intentions for your daughter."

Meg smiled sweetly at her father. She loved him. Even if he was a little rough around the edges, even if he’d hit her a few times, even if he was a murderer. He was her daddy, he protected her when she was little - at least from other guys - and he kept a roof over their head. He could be really good to her, despite the bad times, and she figured it was just the way things were. He was never going to get out of prison, but Meg planned on visiting him for the rest of his life there, she wanted things to be good between them.

"So, daddy, tell me about what’s going on in here?"

Allen’s expression warmed up again when he turned away from Castiel to her.

"Sweetheart, I can’t tell you anything about my operations in here with those camera crews, you should know that."

"You’re being careful right?"

"Course I am."

"That’s good. If there’s anything I can do, you’ll let me know yeah?"

"You know I’ll get in touch if I need you."

“All right, it’s good to see you again daddy.”

"Good to see you too baby girl."

They talked about the birds he watched from behind prison gates, and about how Meg liked to bike ride in the rain. Cas was quiet and restrained, but he talked when he was addressed. Allen didn’t seem to fond of him, but Meg wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t even that they just met, or that it was under unusual circumstances, her father was disapproving of every man she brought home. She had brought home a lot of men though, and some bruises, and sometimes her bags when she needed to hide. Meg knew it was hard on her father being in here and not being able to look out for her.

—-

Another plate shattered against a kitchen cabinet and fell in shards to the floor. Meg was brandishing an entire stack of them, Castiel dodging her throws, looking for all the world like he wanted to escape but she wouldn’t let him past her to the kitchen door.

"Would you just fucking yell at me or get mad or do something?!"

"What purpose would that serve?"

"Are you some kind of fucking robot, you don’t show any emotions, what’s wrong with you!"

"Do you want me to shout, do you want me to hit you?"

"I want you to do something, anything, you never get excited, you never cry, you never fucking touch me, are you even capable of feeling anything?"

Another plate shattered and Castiel only glared at her, the camera lights shining on his face and hollowing out the wrinkles in his brow.

"I don’t understand what the benefit of this is."

“There doesn’t have to be a benefit, I’m tired of everything being so quiet, so goddam ironed and pressed neat, you’re infuriating!”

Meg was slowly advancing on him, smashing plates on the floor, and as soon as she got within range he reached out and grabbed her wrists, stilling her.

"Stop this."

"You stop! You’re so fucking inhuman, what the fuck am I to you huh? You never tell me anything. You don’t have any fucking passion, I don’t know what to do with you."

She was twisting around in his hold, bare feet cut on broken ceramic, hair wild and mouth an angry red cut across her face. Meg didn’t know what to do with quiet guys. You never knew when they were going to crack, or what was under the surface. She’d learned that quiet guys were dangerous and it itched under her skin, the not knowing, the distance between them, she didn’t know how to deal with it. So she dealt with it how she always had, how her father had, how she was used to. She threw things and she yelled and she tried to get him riled up. Just so she could get an idea, if he was some kind of broken psycopath that couldn’t even feel emotions or not.

Meg didn’t know why he got under her skin, into her blood. He was like a glorified roommate, and she knew, she fucking knew this was all a goddam farce but sometimes she couldn’t help wanting. She’d seen something, a way of life she never thought could be hers, never thought she’d ever even want, and it all hinged on him. She wanted to hate him for it.

"I said stop!"

His eyes at least were alive, they didn’t have that cold hardness to them she was used to, they were fucking livid and bright, brow scrunched up, lips twisted down severely. He pushed past her, nothing left to throw at him.

"I don’t have to deal with this."

She heard the clank of keys and half the camera crew left the kitchen to follow him while half staid to film her picking shards of ceramic out of her feet and crying into the kitchen sink.

—-

Meg was nervous about the impending Christmas get together with Castiel’s family. She didn’t do holiday’s. She didn’t believe in Jesus and her father never celebrated when she was little. And although she had only spent a few hours around Castiel’s family before at the wedding, she knew she wasn’t the kind of person they usually associated with it. At least Cas lived far away from them and apparently only ever visited during the requisite familial holiday’s.

The actual day of Christmas fell in the middle of the week so everyone was gathering at the Novak household the weekend before. Castiel and Meg flew down, getting a hotel room for the stay. If it was even possible, Cas got quieter and more formal the closer they got to Saturday. Meg hadn’t really noticed but he had kind of warmed up just a little. Sure he was quiet and serious, but there was every now and then that she could almost catch a smile. He was all right. He obviously didn’t like her much though.

Meg didn’t pry too much into his childhood or his history with his family, she got the feeling he wouldn’t respond too well. He may have come from an affluent family, but money didn’t necessarily mean happiness. Rich families could be just as fucked up as poor ones.

Meg didn’t pander to them, she refused to dress more conservatively and she still cussed at the dinner table, much to the matriarch’s chagrin. Naomi was a very severe woman, and if Meg had to spend more than a day with the woman, she might be a little afraid. Castiel’s dad wasn’t in the picture any more, and he didn’t say how long that was the case but it had been for a while. Meg would guess since Cas was young, or even before. She wondered if he ever got to know his father at all.

Dinner was terse. Most of the family were displeased at being filmed for television. There was one guy, Gabe, who was just having a blast. Meg liked him, he was funny. She could tell his humor was an attempt to gloss over tension and diffuse the open hostility between some of the family members. Most of the kids were guys, almost all of them stone faced like Cas although there were two girls, Anna and Hael. One of the boys, Luke, looked like he made it his mission to be the rebel of the family. He didn’t appear outwardly any different from the rest of the family, he was a normal guy with blond hair and a sly smile, but he was quick to provide the voice of contention, he had a sharp tongue for turning his brother’s words around and making them look like fools.

She liked him best.

Slowly through the day Meg gravitated closer towards Luke, and he bribed her company with wine and interesting conversation and a casual kind of ease she hadn’t felt around anyone for a while. She’d spent too much time cooped up with Cas trying to play nice and had found it hard in a new town with a new job to make many friends. One night stands were one thing. But the way Luke talked to her, lightly put a hand on her hip, smiled at her, she felt something familiar and companionable in his presence.

After dinner and several bottles of wine, Meg found herself in the closet with Luke, groping in the dark against coats like a couple of teenagers. She never pretended to be a classy lady. Maybe she was a little desperate, and maybe she was reckless, but the twist in her belly of doing something she knew should be wrong, bad, dirty had only ever made her more excited.

Luke had her skirt hitched up around her waist and her panties pulled aside, fucking up into her with his face buried in her neck and his hands gripping firm on her hips when she heard the closet door click. Twisting her head around with Luke still inside her, Meg saw Cas’ face framed by the light in the hallway. Pushing Luke off, who didn’t seem chagrined in the slightest as he tucked his dick back in, Meg smoothed her skirt down and tottered out of the closet.

"Hey Cas, are you having a good night too?"

His face had more emotion on it than she’d ever seen and for a brief twinge Meg felt a little guilty. He was trying to school his face back to neutrality, she could tell, but when he spoke his voice laid it all out.

"With my brother?!"

"You said yourself the first night that we weren’t exclusive."

Luke was leaning on the closet door frame and the cameras that she’d managed to lose were back on them.

"I don’t care if you go out and fuck a stranger, but that’s my brother!"

"Cas, he’s shown me more attention in the past six hours than you have in the past six months."

"What, you’ll spread your legs for any guy that smiles at you? How pathetic are you?"

"Oh fuck you asshole! You don’t even know how to use your dick."

Luke laughed next to them and stood up straight, clearly enjoying the escalating conflict.

"Hey, just because you can’t give the lady what she needs doesn’t mean you should be mad at her."

“That’s my wife Luke!”

"And do you ever treat her like it?"

Meg almost thought Castiel was going to throw a punch at Luke, both of them standing toe to toe and glaring furiously at each other. But the rest of the family had slowly surrounded them in a circle, and Meg saw the oldest one, Mike, in agitated conversation with Naomi. Mike stepped forward, putting a hand between Cas and Luke, placing his palm on Cas’ chest and pushing him back.

"All right that’s enough. You’re making a spectacle of this family Castiel and you should leave."

Meg swore she could actually see something snap in Cas, his whole body going tense for a moment before he swiveled and throat punched Mike, sending his brother down coughing and hacking. Luke grabbed Cas by the scruff of his shirt, pulling him back.

"You little shit, do you think you can get away with disrespecting your elders like that?"

Luke looked like he was going to throttle Cas when the short jokester - Gabe - stepped up and twisted Luke’s arm around behind his back, making him drop Cas. Luke turned on him viciously swinging his elbow wide and sending Gabe back skittering on the floor.

It happened too fast to keep up with but as soon as the spark caught everything devolved into chaos. Cameras hovered on the fringes as fighting broke out between the siblings with some trying to pull other’s back and pacify them but only getting caught in the cross fire. Mike picked himself up from the floor and gave Cas a bloody nose, Cas grabbing his arm to twist and kicking out at his legs. A thick set brother Meg thinks is called Uriel pulled Luke back from Gabe and put him in a headlock. Anna was kneeling on the floor behind Gabe checking the wound he got when he hit the floor.

Naomi was screaming herself redfaced and trying to bully the camera crews out of the house. Meg snagged Cas and hauled him to the edges of the fray which seemed likely to continue without them, bodily dragging him out of the house and down the front walk. They were half way to the car before the camera crew must of realized and came streaming out of the house. Naomi appeared in the front door.

"I don’t ever want to see you here again Castiel if you have that whore with you!"

—-

Meg filled a baggie with ice from the maker in the hall, taking it back to their room and Cas who was slouched in a bed with his bloodied white button down open to his navel. He’d cleaned his face while she fetched ice, but there was still blood on his knuckles.

"We haven’t had a family brawl like that in a while."

"That a usual thing for you guys?"

"Rarely. I remember when I was little that Luke and Mike used to fight all the time. There were some broken bones, but…. I was little, I don’t really remember."

Meg suspected that he did, in fact, remember. Maybe not the details, maybe not who did what to who, but you remember. You remember screaming and tension, hiding, the kind of panic that chokes you. It sticks with you.

Meg plopped down on the edge of the bed. Her panties were still twisted up.

"I’m sorry."

Cas took the ice from her, settling it on his nose.

"I am too. For everything."

—-

The flight back home was quiet. The skin over the bridge of Cas ’ nose was split and red, his knuckles bruised, and there were bags under his eyes. Meg was quiet for once too, deciding not to be antagonistic and try to rile him up. She’d had her fun, done plenty of damage, and for some reason it was sitting heavy in her stomach.

Sunday night Castiel didn’t come to bed and she didn’t wake up next to him, so she figured he’d slept on the couch. He went to work on Monday and Tuesday, off Wednesday and Thursday for the holiday’s. There were no decorations around their house, nothing to give away the time of year. Meg knew that he was religious, she’d caught him praying a few times even, but he wasn’t interested in any of the pageantry or pomp.

Castiel buried himself in work the next two days, coming home late, like he could avoid her and avoid any sort of conversation or confrontation if he just wasn’t there for it, like it would die down on it’s own if ignored. Meg didn’t try to force anything, she wasn’t sure if she was more mad at Cas or mad at herself.

What Meg had always told herself, was that she didn’t really do relationships. She wasn’t some sappy overly romantic chick, she didn’t like commitment, she didn’t need a man to feel her existence was validated. Settling down for a year to get a million dollars hadn’t seemed like it should be such a big idea. Even though her husband wasn’t interested in touching her, he’d said she could get what she needed elsewhere. But Meg knew brothers were probably some kind of line. And she felt like she didn’t want to care, but the way Cas’ voice had cracked made her regret her decisions. Now, she’d regretted plenty of things in her life, but she always regretted mistakes that ended up hurting her or screwing herself over. She never really regretted hurting other people.

She regretted hurting Cas.

—-

Christmas eve was filled with more moping and silence. Cas was locked up in his study most of the day and Meg spent her time watching movies, painting her nails, taking a long bubble bath. She could tell the tv crew were getting frustrated for the lack of usable material, the two of them being off in separate parts of the house not interacting wasn’t particularly interesting.

Cas disappeared around seven and she wondered if he’d come home after dinner or spend the night out. Poking around in the kitchen cupboards, Meg found she didn’t really have any appetite of her own.

At eight she heard the front door being opened and shut quietly, keys set gently in the bowl by the door, and Castiel appeared in the living room where she was watching another movie holding a box of pizza with a six pack on top of it.

"I….. I didn’t know what present you might like for the holidays. Perhaps, my effort would be acceptable."

"Effort for what? What’s in the bag there Cas?"

Meg perked up a little, a brown bag tucked under Cas’ arm and he shuffled nervously, setting the pizza box down on the coffer table and glancing at the camera crew. Finally pushing the bag towards her, Cas sat down on the couch, perching on the edge with his hands in his lap. Meg opened up the bag, taking out a bottle of tequila, and a rented porno.

"Really?"

Castiel stood and made his way to the kitchen, coming back with plates, napkins, a bottle opener and shot glasses.

"See, now you’re talking my language. And here I didn’t get you anything. I could always do you a favor."

After a moment of nudging his shoulder and leering suggestively Castiel finally sagged back onto the couch. “What sort of favor.”

"Anything you want."

Cas’ gaze flicked to her momentarily, squinting like he might actually be considering something. Meg sighed and finally attempted to say sorry.

"I don’t know why you’re apologizing, I was kind of the one that fucked your brother."

“I don’t see how ‘kind of’ is an apt descriptor.”

“Ok, I totally fucked your brother.”

Cas reached for the bottle of tequila.

"I know I’ve been reserved and I haven’t given you much. I do apologize for that. I believe if I’d been more attentive this wouldn’t have happened."

"Yeah, well, you don’t really owe me anything."

"But I do. You’re my wife. Whether this is for entertainment or not, we’ve taken vows and I should take that more seriously."

"This conversation is getting a little too heavy. Why don’t we get drunk, watch porn, and see what happens."

Pouring two shots and passing her one, Cas tipped his back smooth and poured another.

"All right."

—-

Not much happened. The camera crews left them alone once they popped the porno in, and Cas was knocking back shots like it was his job. But despite that promising beginning, Meg found herself somehow even more sexually frustrated. He sat straight and rigid even after half the bottle had disappeared, staring at the screen with a look of extreme consternation, tilting his head to the side when the guy started spanking the girl.

Meg thought it was a mediocre porno, pretty standard, but she was more interested in watching Cas than watching the porn. They ate half the pizza and finished the beer in between shots.

Castiel huffed a little frustrated sigh.

“I don’t understand this.”

“It’s mainstream porn, it’s not supposed to make sense or even be an accurate representation of sex. Are you sure you’re not a virgin?”

“I may not have much experience, but no, I am not a virgin.”

“Do you have any sex drive?”

Cas glanced down to his lap, Meg followed his gaze, and that was definitely a boner. She had thought it was promising, until Cas started speaking again.

“I fail to comprehend the purpose of shallow sex with strangers. I can have an orgasm with myself any time I like. Being with another human being requires…. effort, communication, and I just, I don’t understand people. I don’t want to take something from another person, selfishly, for my own benefit, if I can’t understand what they want.”

Meg tried to think about that one, she really did, but she had way too much tequila for meaningful conversations about fucking versus making love, which seemed to be where Cas was going with this.

“It’s just sex, it’s fun, if they wanna do it with you then it’s fun for them too so you shouldn’t worry about it.”

Castiel actually looked acutely worried over the situation however.

“I don’t understand.”

He tried drunkenly reaching for her when the porn went back to the title screen and she was halfway interested, mostly out of curiosity, but he was clearly worked up and anxious, all twitchy hands and face flushed red, making little worried grunts when he couldn’t figure out what he was doing. So Meg dragged him upstairs, pushed him down in bed, stripped him to his boxers and folded the blankets over him. Leaving a glass of water on the nightstand with a few aspirins she slept on the couch that night. 

—-

Meg had pretty much stopped flouncing around in skimpy clothes trying to seduce Cas. It wouldn’t work. As much as it pained her to admit he seemed more interested in getting to know her than fucking her. Once she stopped bristling and opened up to conversation, putting forth effort to soften her edges just a little, she found Cas responding.

The thing was, he actually treated her like she was smart and interesting, like he enjoyed hearing what she had to say. It was easier to drop her snark and sass when she didn’t need it for a defense mechanism or to get attention.

She bought cook books, and spent more time reading them and practicing. Listening to Cas and what he liked, Meg put together a list of food they’d both enjoy and buckled down to try her hand at proper cooking. She never really cooked much before because she never had the money for a lot of foods or the time between two jobs. But she was only working part time, and Cas was always putting in long hours and bringing his work home. The few times she saw him trying to make something from scratch instead of a box, she had to flee the kitchen not to laugh at the stern scowl on his face. So she stopped being so stubborn about the home making role she found herself in and decided if she wanted to cook for her husband she could damn well cook for her husband.

The first time Cas came home to the smell of garlic bread in the oven and spaghetti on the stove top - she made the sauce herself - he looked confused for a moment before setting aside his briefcase and asking how her day was. It was damn good spaghetti.

She didn’t cook every day, and she didn’t always cook from scratch but she was definitely getting better at it. Meg found herself surprised that she enjoyed it, she found a simple kind of pleasure in making something good and learning a new skill. And she didn’t quite want to think too hard on it but the way Cas would grunt his approval at a new dish because he was too busy eating to talk, it made her smile.

They were both relaxed in the kitchen, long since learning to ignore the cameras in the corners. It was somewhere warm in the house that smelled nice where they talked openly and ate freely. It took a few weeks for her to notice, but Cas started touching her absent mindedly in the kitchen. He would come up behind her and reach around her to snag a piece of chopped vegetable, hand on her hip, or wipe a smudge of sauce off her face and push a lock of hair behind her ear when her hands were dirty. It came easily and Meg found herself relaxing into this domestic sort of intimacy rather than shying from it.

Castiel’s first kiss to her was in the kitchen. They’d been married eight months, eight months of sleeping clothed in the same bed with pillows or bunched blankets between them, eight months of living in the same space without really living with each other, eight months of misunderstandings and mistakes, when he kissed her.

She was branching out into baking, a pie crust rolled on the counter and filling simmering on the stove. Meg dipped a spoon in the pan and blew on the berry filling before tasting it, lifting the spoon up to Cas who blustered in after work with hard lines on his face and his hands tight on his briefcase. When he saw the proffered spoon, his expression smoothed out and he took the offering gladly. Reaching up he brushed a little from the corner of her mouth with the pad of his thumb, tilting forward and licking lingering traces of it from her lips. Cas stilled, hands frozen between them, but Meg smiled and looped an arm around his neck to keep him from running, pushing up on her tip toes to press against him and take the kiss she wanted, deep and sweet.

—-

Winter was giving way to spring, the sun rising early every day, the birds coming back to the area chirping happily in trees that were budding green. It was a lazy Saturday morning when they were both lounging in bed and touching with gentle contented sleepiness, thinking about what they needed to do that weekend. Cas was already making plans for his gardens. Meg was thinking of joining a book club.

He took her hand, kissing the backs of her knuckles and stroking his thumb against the palm, lips soft and breath warm on her skin. There had been this intimacy between them, which baffled her. Meg was hardly ever close like this to guys she fucked. And she wasn’t even fucking Cas. It was nice though, when she didn’t think about it too hard.

She still didn’t have a lot of answers, about Cas, about who he was and what he was. Hell, she still didn’t even know why he’d agreed to do this tv show marriage. Meg tried opening up the conversation again this relaxed Saturday morning, fingers nimbly skipping down the dip of Castiel’s back.

"It’s complicated."

“Yeah, and I got time. There’s no cameras on us, c’mon, I wanna know.”

Castiel frowned and sat up in bed, staring at his hands. Meg kept quiet, letting him think and get all his little ducks in a row.

"I had just ended an unhealthy relationship, one that my family was very disapproving of. I actually had cut ties with them to be with him. They tried to take me back into the fold when we broke up. My family can be very…. persuasive. Manipulative. In any case, they had arranged a proper marriage for me and were trying to force me into it."

“Did they not get the memo that it’s the twenty-first century?”

"Yes, well, after what they considered a sinful homosexual tryst that endangered my mortal soul, I’m sure they were convinced they were doing what was right."

“So, basically, you agreed to a fake tv made marriage with a stranger to get out of a fake family made marriage with a stranger?”

"I didn’t say my reasons made sense, and I will plead temporary insanity. Perhaps … I changed a lot in the years I spent with my boyfr - with my ex boyfriend. He ignited a sort of rebellious streak in me."

"What was his name?"

"Dean."

"So why’d you break up anyway?"

"He had a temper. And I’d never realized about myself but apparently I do as well. We just, brought out the worst in each other. I hurt him, badly, several times, and I didn’t know how to change. It scared me, who I was becoming. So I ran."

"That’s shitty."

Cas was fidgeting with his hands, a scowl on his face. He took a deep breath and looked back up at Meg.

"And you? The money can’t be the only reason you agreed to this."

"Well, it is. I am a simple girl with simple needs."

“That’s not true.”

"How’d you know that?"

"You’re a very complex person Meg. You are intelligent, strong, witty…. beautiful."

Meg startled when he cupped her face, she hadn’t realized she was looking away but it was kind of hard to look in his eyes for some reason.

"I’m not who you think I am Cas."

"And I doubt I am who you think. That’s why we learn, and change our opinions. We can even change our opinions about ourselves."

Meg was the one feeling uneasy now, wanting to lean in to his touch but also wanting to run away from the vulnerability that was making her stomach turn sour.

"Is it so hard to believe Meg?"

"No one’s ever said something like that to me before."

"It’s true. You are a good person."

The strange thing was that she believed it when he said it. She believed she was good when he looked at her with affection, she believed it when he touched her lightly and she believed it when he kissed her with nothing but reverence. 

—-

Things changed in small ways that felt like ice melting, and Meg hadn’t really noticed it at first but she found herself suddenly standing in a puddle now. Come to think of who she was when she first got married to Cas, she realized she had already changed a lot. Maybe Cas was changing too.

He laughed more – actually laughed – and he had stopped bringing as much work home with him as he used to, opting instead to discuss books over dinner with Meg. He went out with her on the weekends, and clubs weren’t really his scene but Meg could dig art shows and ballet, so they compromised.

Sometimes she tied his tie in the morning, just because, and he started buying her bras in his own conservative taste, but hey it meant he was thinking about her in underwear so Meg counted that as a win.

One day when the camera crews were packed up for the night and they were alone in their bedroom, Cas gave her a small tissue paper wrapped package tied with a bow. Inside was a simple yet elegant black lace negligee.

“Really Cas?”

“I think I might like to see you in that.”

“Only if you agree to undress me.”

“I could do that.”

Meg changed in the attached bathroom, putting the lingerie on without her bra or panties. It was a soft stretchy sort of lace that clung to her curves and flared a little from her hips, stopping at the tops of her thighs. Black made her look more pale, but she liked the contrast, and her nails were painted red today. When she came back in the bedroom Castiel was down to his boxers. They were plain white and cotton, but she thought his trim body looked just fine like that.

Meg perched on the edge of the bed, fingernails tapping up his thigh.

"I thought you didn’t want to fuck me before?"

"It’s not that I didn’t want to…. have sexual intercourse with a you. I didn’t want to with a stranger."

“So, what’s changed.”

“You’re not a stranger anymore.”

He kneeled and scooted closer to her, one hand pushing through her hair to cradle the back of her head while he bent forward to kiss her, with all the sweetness of affection he had and a promise of hunger that made her ache when he nipped her lower lip.

“Well I should hope not.”

Meg let him lay her back on the bed, Castiel leaning over her pressed to her side, his hands caressing the lace over her stomach and breasts, palms circling, fingers teasing. Reaching up for him and tangling her fingers in his hair, she deepened their kiss, open mouthed with breathy little pants when he started to roll a nipple between his fingers, lace taut over sensitive skin. Castiel kissed her lips, and her cheek, and her nose, making a path down her neck to the dip between her breasts. Meg ran her hands eagerly over his body, up hard muscled arms and over the jut of his shoulder blades, down the arch of his back and pushing under the hem of his boxers.

Eventually Cas pushed up, letting her pull his boxers down while he squirmed his hips out of them, grabbing her by the hips as he did and sliding her up the bed, kneeling between her legs and kissing her from ankle to thigh. He left bruises on the soft tender parts of her thighs because she wouldn’t stop moaning and gripping his hair when he bit there, hips rolling up and legs splayed wide begging him higher.

Lace scrunched up around her waist, Castiel pet the tops of her thighs when he dipped his head between her legs and kissed her vulva, delicately and gently. It wasn’t what Meg expected, she was accustomed to hurried sex and desperation, greedy need and rough taking, taking, taking. It was what she would have done to him, months ago, but now, she wasn’t sure what to do, almost terrified of this new territory and what Cas and done to her, what he’d opened up in her. It was oh so sweet, as he gave and he gave.

Meg shook apart beneath him, muscles quivering and stomach sore by the time he pushed lace further up her body and left a trail of kisses along her belly. Strong arms lifted her upright and pulled the flimsy material over her head, dark brown hair tumbling over her shoulders and she grasped his face to kiss him fevered and wanting.

Her taste was on his lips, she could see herself in the shine of his eyes, but it was a reflection, an impression, it was who she was through him, and she needed that, that other component, him. Fingernails scratching down his spine, carefully, so much more carefully than she knew she could be, Meg sucked her mark on his neck while he rocked his erection against her belly, hands playing with her hair.

He lay her back down, following with a graceful flex of muscles as he rolled his hips and sank into her, lips to lips breathing each other in. She hadn’t understood why it would matter so much, why it could make any difference at all, to know someone like this before opening her legs for them. But she knew then that she wouldn’t have liked many of them if they were anything but strangers. This with Cas, this thing that was more than just fucking, with the weight of hard earned knowledge and trust and the affection for him that swelled somewhere secret in her, it was painful for how raw it was but beautiful for how deep it ran.

Slender arms wrapped around his shoulders and she held on tight while he took all the pieces he’d broken in her and shattered them to dust, but she could see it in him, that something had shifted irrevocably and shattered as well. Gasping with need so overwhelming it stuck in her chest, Meg opened herself to him and let Cas into places of her self she’d never touched, never acknowledged.

Cas held her tight in the circle of his arms when they lay with sheets rumpled around them, only the sound of beating hearts and shaking breath under her ear. She was scared, of this fathomless unknown that had opened its maw, she was starved and she was lost and she hadn’t known until then, it was as though she’d waken after years of fasting to rediscover a how this basic function worked again. It wasn’t a hunger in her belly and it wasn’t anything physical she could consume.

It was love she wanted. 

—-

They still fought. Meg was a volatile person and Castiel was given to rare fits of temper. Every now and then she broke all the dishes in the kitchen. But she learned to apologize, and eventually picked up on Cas’ own slight ways of expressing emotion, the subtle body language he used to communicate. It was an improvement. And the sex was fantastic.

After the year had passed for the television show, and they had survived still married, they each took their paychecks and sat outside in the garden together. It was a temperamental June day, clouds threatening rain and a blustering wind whipping up erratically.

Cas had a wry half smile on his face, like it might turn down any minute. “We made it for a whole year.”

“It feels like it’s been a lot longer than that.”

“I suppose since the money is the only reason you agreed to this, you don’t have any particular reason to stay anymore.”

“Well aren’t you a ray of sunshine Cas.”

“Meg. Do you want to stay?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“Cause I like who you are under all the layers. You’re not a stranger anymore.”


End file.
